


Eliot's Plan

by waterbird13



Series: Tumblr Fics [424]
Category: Leverage
Genre: Eliot Whump, Injury, Multi, Severe Injury, Torture, Whump, introspective, violence ins't graphic but present throughout
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-30
Updated: 2017-05-30
Packaged: 2018-11-07 00:57:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,215
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11047962
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/waterbird13/pseuds/waterbird13
Summary: It's not a thing he's allowed to speak aloud, but it's always been Eliot's plan. When things get rough, he dies and Parker and Hardison stay far, far away.That's just the way things are supposed to work.





	Eliot's Plan

**Author's Note:**

> My favorite kind of self-depreciating Eliot whump. Actual torture here.
> 
> I want to make this longer someday.

Eliot counts the ribs that are now broken. Thinks about the consequences of that, the internal bleeding, the potential to puncture a lung or worse. Most people, they focus on anything else to forget the pain of the body. Not Eliot. He’s familiar with pain. It’s a relief, almost, a grounding normality. And, more importantly, something to focus on, remove his mind from the world around him, so he doesn’t have to think.

If he’s counting ribs and fingers and wondering about the slow bleed on his thigh–missed the artery, and that’s a deliberate choice, they want something there–then he doesn’t hear their questions. Can ignore them asking about Parker and Hardison, about the job.

He’s going to die here. He’s going to die here and he knows it, has long ago made his peace with dying on the job. He’s going to die because they thought the mark was into some sketchy shit, but no one would have even guessed he was a well-trained, paranoid recruiter for some of the blackest black-ops groups within the CIA. Not even Eliot. There were no markers, no clues.

All in all, it’s not the worst way to die. It’ll be long and slow but that’s never been a disqualifier for Eliot. And as long as he keeps his mouth shut, he’ll have died protecting Parker and Hardison. Kept his promise to Sophie. All he’s ever wanted to do was protect them. Give his life for them.

There’s no redemption for people like him, but he’s always thought this would taste something almost like it.

It honestly tastes more like the iron of blood, and he can’t tell if he bit the inside of his mouth up that bad or if he’s choking up blood now. Maybe the latter. That’d be good. Mean it’s almost over. Eliot can hold out indefinitely, for Parker and Hardison he will, but he’s not a masochist. The sooner his torturers push things too far, push his body over the edge and let it end, the better.

At first they hadn’t roughed him up too bad. Had thought his partners would come for him. But they wouldn’t, and Eliot knew it. He had trained them too well.

Not in too many words, not explicitly like that, because they don’t respond very well to the facts of life, Hardison especially, but even Parker wouldn’t have taken it well. And he didn’t want to confuse them. If Parker gets grabbed, if Hardison gets grabbed, Eliot would move heaven and earth to find them. Would kill people if he had to, no questions asked.

But he’s not worth that to the team, not really. One more unredeemable ex-mercenary whose greatest wish is to die for his friends should and will eventually be put out of his misery. Besides. If Eliot finds himself in a situation he can’t get himself out of, then no one else should go in. The world knows full well Eliot would fight his way back to them tooth and nail, if at all possible. Eliot is meant to be left behind when compromised, replaced maybe, and he has to shy away from that thought, because it hurts, selfishly, even though he knows they’ll need someone in his place.

Eliot counts ribs again. Wonders if he missed one. The questions seems distant now, almost unintelligible. He continues to ignore them entirely, keeps his eyes closed. Soon. It’ll be over.

He thinks of Parker and Hardison, thinks about the way they smile at him sometimes, and focuses on the image. Hardison’s big hands when he claps Eliot on the shoulder, pulls him into a hug. Parker’s feet in his lap when they sit on the couch.

It seems selfish, to use them like this, to get him through to the end, but then again, he is selfish and they’ll never know.

It’s hard to process that the pain’s stopped coming when his whole body still hurts so badly, but he’s sure of it, there’s no new additions to the pain. It must mean he died.

“Quinn, you can go now.”

It’s Parker’s voice, and Eliot squeezes his eyes shut tighter. Hallucinations, then. He’s reached this stage before. Almost to the end, then.

“What?”

That’s a strange voice to hear. Quinn. He’s not a bad guy; maybe Parker and Hardison will get in touch with him about filling the vacancy on the team. He’ll want a paycheck, but they’ve worked that out before, and he would take care of them. Not like Eliot, maybe, but it would be…passable.

“Money’ll be in your account by the morning,” Hardison snaps. “Let us take care of him.”

Jesus, his subconscious is going wild on him at the end, some twisted form of torture. Maybe he was drugged. That might explain it.

There are hands on him, and Eliot sucks in a shaky, bloody, painful breath. He’s hallucinated more times than he cares to count, and they never feel this solid, this real, this warm…

They never make his pain worse.

He doesn’t cry out but Hardison apologizes anyways. “Sorry, sorry,” he mumbles. “Lemme get you off this chair, El, lemme get'cha, I got'cha.”

Then there are more hands, Parker’s light fingers skimming him for injuries.

“You’re not supposed to be here,” Eliot manages to mumble, eyes still closed, half unsure if they’ll even open, half unsure if he wants to see. “You’re not supposed to come.”

“Don’t you ever say that again,” Parker says sharply, and for just a moment her hand isn’t light anymore. Eliot doesn’t say anything but she lets up anyways. “Don’t you…we’re supposed to do this together.”

Eliot does his best to forget his body, the way it’s broken and twisted and shutting down, because if they really are here, if they were this sentimental and desperate and stupid, then that means they’re in danger, and he needs to take care of it.

He’ll die for them today after all, but hopefully he’s still coordinated enough to give them an opening to get away first.

They both hold him down. “Eliot,” Hardison says patiently. “Just trust us. For as long as it takes to get you to the hospital. Then we’ll talk about security an’ strategies an’ next steps. But just trust us.”

“You’re not supposed to risk yourselves for me.”

“Listen to me,” Hardison says, as fierce as Eliot’s ever heard. “We would tear the world apart for you, okay? Because this team–us–it only works with three.”

Parker’s hands leave him and Eliot holds back the whimper of how much he doesn’t like that. They don’t need to know that. “They’re here. Let’s get him to the chopper.”

Eliot’s still rational enough to have questions–like how they plan on flying a chopper off a secret black site base, or how the two of them plan on dragging his ass to a chopper. But as they load him onto a stretcher, as their hands leave his broken body but he’s left to listen to familiar if labored footsteps and breaths, he knows he’s selfishly not going to ask, selfishly going to let them keep going, because if there’s an option that allows him to stay with them, he’s going to take it, whether he should or not.


End file.
